


Intro to Counterfeit Romanticism

by anemicaxolotl



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Episode: s01e03 Introduction to Film, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Friends to Lovers, Jeff Winger's Cargo Pants, M/M, i mean based on intro to film but quickly loses touch with canon timelines & reality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-13 15:07:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29280432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anemicaxolotl/pseuds/anemicaxolotl
Summary: Jeff smirks. “Abed, how do you feel about method acting?”Or: Professor Whitman is suspicious, Jeff is desperate, and Abed always wanted to try fake-dating.
Relationships: Abed Nadir/Jeff Winger
Comments: 18
Kudos: 80





	Intro to Counterfeit Romanticism

**Author's Note:**

> Immense thanks to my Jabed Intro to Film on tumblr for giving me this idea! (Whoever you are, I hope you don't mind I turned it into a whole fic and I love you immeasurably.)

So Britta telling him to kiss her just as Professor Whitman approached – yeah, Jeff had to hand it to her, that had been a stroke of genius. And if those feelings he had for her (some strange combination of horniness and fond annoyance) had lingered after she walked off, well, that was a problem for another day. Professor Whitman had awarded him an A. All was well, day seized, etc.

So he’s not expecting it when, a few weeks later, the professor stops him on his way out the door with a hand on his shoulder.

“Ah, Mr. Winger,” he says sadly. “How _are_ you?”

“Uh…peachy keen?” Jeff tries.

Professor Whitman smiles grimly. “Jeffrey, let’s not mince words. I’ve seen your flaxen-haired beau holding hands with that hackey-sacking Don Juan around campus. You must be _devastated.”_

“Oh. Yeah.” Britta and Vaughn. Jeff hadn’t expected Whitman to actually keep tabs on his day-seizing after that first week. “It’s, uh, been a rough one.”

“Has it?” The professor gives him that knowing look. “If I didn’t know better, Mr. Winger, I’d say you staged that kiss after all.”

“No!” Jeff widens his eyes as convincingly as he can. “Professor Whitman, consider me doubly heartbroken. How’s a man to go on when his flaxen-haired beau abandons him _and_ his favorite professor doubts the validity of his feelings?”

Professor Whitman tilts his head and gives Jeff a long, considering look. “Perhaps it’s not my place to meddle in the personal lives of my students,” he says slowly. “But I don’t appreciate my class being treated as a joke. Consider this your warning, Mr. Winger – if I don’t see an improvement in your attitude toward this course, I’ll drop your A to an F faster than you can sound a barbaric _yawp.”_

With a wink, he heel-clicks out the door and strides off down the hall.

Jeff finds Britta in the quad lounging on a beach towel and watching Vaughn’s hackey-sack practice.

“Hey,” he whispers, dropping down beside her. “Dump Vaughn and go out with me.”

“What?” Britta shoves his shoulder. “You’re insane.”

“Professor Whitman knows we faked that kiss!” Jeff hisses.

Britta smirks. “Oh, no! Is Jeff Winger actually going to face a consequence for his bad behavior?”

“Britta, the entire reason I am enrolled in Looney Tunes University is because I am facing the consequences of my bad behavior. This is not the time to get preachy. If I can’t prove to Professor Whitman I’m still seizing the day he’s going to fail me, so next time we see him, you need to kiss me again.”

“God, why don’t you just kiss Shirley if you’re so desperate? Or _Abed,_ for all I care.” Rolling her eyes, Britta slides her headphones over her ears, effectively ending the conversation. 

Jeff sulks into the study room early, nursing his wounded ego and his stupid Britta-crush. He’s already lamenting the loss of his A, because there’s no way anything less than a whirlwind romance will convince Whitman that Jeff has abandoned his cynicism for day-seizing exuberance. And with Britta unwilling to yield, his options for a short-notice romance are limited. Considering the looks he’s seen her give Pierce, Jeff is pretty sure Shirley would knock him out if he tried to kiss her. Annie is practically still a child, so that’s a non-starter.

Abed, on the other hand…

Britta had obviously been joking when she had brought his name up, but he’s already in the study room when Jeff arrives, and now Jeff is thinking. Abed loves a good reference, a spoof, an _homage,_ as he calls them. And more importantly, he knows how to commit to a bit. Jeff watches him fiddle with the settings on his camera and wonders if there are any same-sex romance movies short of _Brokeback Mountain_ he’d be willing to reenact.

“I can tell you’re staring at me. Do you have a question?” Abed asks in that flat tone of his without looking up from his camera.

Jeff smirks. “Abed, how do you feel about method acting?”

Jeff drums his fingers on the desk and glances up at the clock. Abed’s film class gets out ten minutes before Jeff’s class, but it’s clear across the quad, and if he doesn’t get here in time…

“…and remember, students, it’s not about _which_ day you seize, but _how_ you seize it. Please watch one sunset and be able to describe its colors in detail for next class.” Professor Whitman gestures grandly to the door as a sign of dismissal.

Jeff takes his time strolling to the exit, making sure he’s the last student out the door. To his immense relief, Abed is waiting there, gripping his bookbag tightly. His hair is a little windswept, as if he’d just run across the quad – which, Jeff realizes with a start, is probably true.

“Hey Jeff,” he says brightly.

“Abed,” Jeff replies with a nod. “Did you run all the way here?”

“Yeah. I was hoping I could walk you to your next class, if that’s okay.” He stretches a hand out toward Jeff, just like they’d planned.

Jeff links their fingers together and smiles. “I would love that,” he says, his voice dripping with what he hopes is a believable level of affection.

Abed’s lips quirk up in just a hint of a smile. Then, he takes a step closer and, to Jeff’s utter shock, he goes off-script and presses a soft kiss to Jeff’s cheek. “Cool, cool cool cool. Let’s get going.”

Before Jeff can take a step, he hears a loud throat-clearing behind him. He turns to see Professor Whitman raising his eyebrows at him curiously.

“Have a good day, Professor,” Jeff stammers out before stumbling after Abed down the hall, their hands still intertwined.

“I don’t like you two boys living in sin like this.”

Britta rolls her eyes. “Shirley, your antiquated notions of homosexuality as sinful are–”

“I don’t mean that! I just don’t like all the lying that’s going on.” Shirley primly smooths her hands over her skirt. “Plus, it’s one thing for Jeff to parade around spreading his wicked falsehoods, but it’s not nice to make Abed pretend to be interested in men _that way,_ too…”

“Oh, I’m not pretending. I am interested in men that way,” Abed says casually, twirling his pencil between his fingers.

He turns back to his textbook but glances up again when Troy kicks him under the table. He looks around at the silent study group. “What’s up?” he asks innocently.

“Abed, you’re _gay?”_ Annie whispers, mouth agape.

“Bisexual, actually.”

“That’s awesome,” Troy breathes. “That’s, like, _double_ the dating pool!”

“You never told me,” Jeff says softly, staring at Abed. He’s not exactly offended, but…there’s a strange feeling there he’s not exactly sure how to describe.

Abed frowns. “Well, yeah. Why would I agree to fake-date you if I wasn’t actually attracted to men? It wouldn’t make any sense.”

“Personally, I don’t see why you’d agree to it at all,” Britta scoffs.

“I’ve always been interested in the fake-dating trope. _I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry _is probably the closest to what we’re doing here, but I also really liked _The Proposal_ and Jeff does kind of have Sandra-Bullock-no-nonsense-editor-in-chief vibes, if Sandra Bullock dressed way worse,” Abed finishes, pointing to Jeff’s sharp blazer and sloppy cargo pants.

Jeff opens his mouth, closes it, frowns, and opens his mouth again, but can’t really argue with Abed’s analysis. “Does that make you Ryan Reynolds?”

“Those two end up together in the end,” Troy points out, and Abed shoots a finger gun in his direction, wiggling his eyebrows conspiratorially.

“Look, can we just get back to studying before Pierce wakes up and realizes how many gay jokes he missed?” Annie hisses, nodding at their sleeping group member and opening up her textbook.

Everyone mumbles their agreement and get back to work. Jeff shoots a quick glance at Abed, who is watching him carefully. When Jeff offers him a cautious smile, he smiles shyly back before turning back to his own textbook.

“Sorry if I made things weird yesterday.”

Jeff startles and turns to see Abed leaning against a pillar outside the library, waiting for him. “Not sure what you mean.”

He falls into step beside Jeff as they make their way across the quad. “I didn’t tell you I was attracted to both men and women before agreeing to fake-date you, and now I’m worried I might’ve made you uncomfortable. I don’t want you thinking I entered this under false pretenses or anything.”

Jeff looks over at Abed, whose eyes are on the ground in front of them. Abed, who manipulated Britta to get a realistic performance out of her for his documentary, but who also sat in a room for over 24 hours because he thought he was doing Annie a favor as a friend. He’s something of a wild card that Jeff still can’t really categorize, but he seems sincere in his apology. And something tells Jeff that in spite of his quirks and eccentricities, he’s actually a genuinely good person.

So he just shrugs and says “It’s fine, Abed,” and means it. “Now, if you don’t mind,” he adds, and he reaches out to grab Abed’s hand.

Abed links their fingers together with a smile. “Do you think we’re going to need to keep this up the whole semester?” he asks curiously.

“I mean, if you have other dating prospects, I don’t expect you to put your whole life on hold for me,” Jeff says, “but a little warning would be nice so we can stage a breakup this time. Whitman’s never going to let me live it down if I screw up two fake dating scenarios in one semester.”

“Got it,” Abed says with a nod. “I have someone coming over to my dorm tonight, but she lives off campus so it shouldn’t be an issue to keep things on the down low. And I don’t see it becoming anything serious so there’s no problem there, either.”

Jeff nearly trips over his own feet. “Abed, you have a booty call scheduled for tonight?”

“Yeah, but don’t worry about it. People are in and out of my dorm all the time for movie nights and things like that, so it won’t look suspicious. Although if anyone catches on to what’s happening I suppose we could improvise a cheating confrontation scene in front of your professor, as long as it’s not too obvious.”

He glances at Jeff when he’s finished talking, and Jeff can only shake his head in awe. “Abed, has anyone ever told you you’re the coolest?”

Abed smiles that subtle smile of his and squeezes Jeff’s hand, just a little.

The crazy thing is, it actually works.

Abed walks Jeff from Professor Whitman’s class across the quad every week, and the man even gets to know Abed by name, greeting him with a smile and clapping Jeff on the shoulder and warning him, “Don’t mess this one up, Mr. Winger! You’ve got a keeper there.” And with Abed’s hand in his, an A for the semester in his back pocket, Jeff can’t help but agree.

They end up hanging out outside of the study group more, partially by necessity and partially because it turns out Jeff _really_ likes Abed. He’s got his quirks still, of course, but he’s also got an encyclopedic knowledge of Jeff’s favorite movies, a Costco-sized box of microwave popcorn under his bed, and the comfiest couch known to mankind. What started as grabbing lunch on campus after class turns into hanging out at Abed’s dorm all hours of the night. It makes Jeff feel young to play video games with Abed’s dorm friends or watch John Hughes flicks on weeknights, and he’d be lying if he said he didn’t love it. 

(There’s also something weirdly captivating about Abed, not least of all being the way he’d admitted to being bisexual so freely. Jeff is kind of in awe of the way he knows himself and has no qualms about showing all of himself to the world, while Jeff will spend hours scrutinizing himself in the mirror wondering which parts to hide. So if he spends time with Abed hoping some of that self-assurance will rub off on him, well, that’s strictly Jeff’s business.)

Britta gives him crap for it every time she sees him, of course. “How’s your _boyfriend?”_ she croons, and he elbows her and smirks, wondering when the horniness and fond annoyance he once felt for her had mellowed out into something of a begrudging companionship.

“I don’t know how we’re pulling it off, but Professor Whitman sees me as a changed man!” he tells her one day on line in the cafeteria. “And honestly, it sounds crazy, but I like hanging out with Abed. He gets me, you know?”

“I think you should leave the poor kid alone and let him have friends his own age,” Britta says. “Although I have to say, your wardrobe has improved considerably ever since he insulted your fashion sense, so clearly he’s a good influence on _you,_ if nothing else.”

Jeff glances down at his new jeans and the crisp sweater he’s wearing. “Who said I’m wearing this because of him? Maybe I got sick of having so many easily accessible pockets.” He slides his tray down to the register and adds, “And he’s hardly a kid, Britta. He’s only a few years behind you, and you don’t see me telling _you_ you’re not capable of making your own dating decisions.”

He nods across the room to where Vaughn is seated cross-legged on a lunch table, tuning a guitar and strumming its strings lightly.

Britta rolls her eyes. “I’m just saying, Abed is our innocent, okay? Don’t infect him with your cynicism. And _don’t_ end up falling for him and getting your heart broken. He’s more of a one-night-stand dude than a relationship guy.”

Jeff nearly drops his tray. “How do you _know_ that?”

Raising her eyebrows with a smirk, Britta heads off toward Vaughn’s table, leaving Jeff to splutter after her indignantly until he realizes it’s pointless. He drifts over to where the rest of the study group is sitting and slides into the seat across from Abed.

“Hey Jeff, Troy can’t make it to movie night tonight. You want to come over and watch _Taken?”_ he asks without looking up from his meal.

Jeff smiles. “Yeah, that’d be cool.”

Troy glances from Abed to Jeff and back again. “Abed, you hate Liam Neeson,” he mumbles, like he’s trying to remind Abed of something he might’ve forgotten.

Abed just shrugs and pops another French fry into his mouth, and something not unpleasant twists deep inside Jeff’s stomach.

Jeff is standing in the hallway in front of Abed’s dorm, wiping one sweaty hand against the front of his jeans while the other clutches a six-pack of cheap beer. Which is dumb, because he’s pretty sure Abed doesn’t drink beer. _He_ doesn’t even drink cheap beer. He’s got no idea what possessed him to bring crappy beer to Abed’s dorm room for a Liam Neeson movie night. He’s beginning to panic.

He lifts a hand to knock, but the door opens before he gets a chance. “Hey Jeff,” Abed says. “You’re right on time. Cool, you brought cheap beer.” He grabs the six-pack from Jeff and steps aside. “Come on in.”

Jeff makes himself at home on the couch, cozy as it ever is, while Abed gets the popcorn and flips off the light. He passes Jeff a beer, and they clink their cans together with a grin as the movie starts.

The thing about Abed, Jeff has learned, is that it’s really hard to tell sometimes when he’s doing a bit and when he’s being sincere. He can take a moment too far without considering the effect it can have on the people around him. So about halfway through the film, when he scootches closer to Jeff on the couch and does the classic yawn-and-put-your-arm-around-your-date move, Jeff has no idea what it means and how he’s meant to react.

“Abed,” he says lightly, “people usually do that move during chick flicks, not action movies.”

“Don’t be such a genre snob,” Abed says, unbothered. “You’re ruining the bit.”

“Is it a bit?” Jeff shoots back. “Because unless Professor Whitman is hiding under your bunk bed, there’s really no reason for you to be this close to me.”

Abed narrows his eyes, watches Jeff for a moment, then shrugs. “Okay,” he says easily, shifting like he’s going to slide back to the other side of the couch.

Before he can, Jeff shocks them both by snatching Abed’s hand, keeping him in place. Abed frowns, glancing from his hand to Jeff’s face and back again.

“Am I getting the Abed Nadir one-night-stand treatment?” Jeff asks quietly, running his thumb along Abed’s knuckles.

Abed’s eyes widen in shock, but he admits, “Maybe. Is that…something that you want?”

He’s really asking, giving Jeff the chance to say _stop, pause, slow down,_ whatever he needs. And something about that makes Jeff’s heartbeat quicken. As much fear as he feels about digging into this long-buried part of himself – the part that maybe wonders what it’s like to do this with a guy instead of a girl like Britta – there’s equal parts excitement. Not to mention trust, too, at the thought of doing this with Abed, who waits for Jeff to make up his mind with an easy, patient smile.

So he exhales with a nod and confesses, “Yeah, it is,” and watches Abed’s smile grow.

“Cool,” he says, and then he says it about four more times as he swings a leg over Jeff’s lap and gently cups his face in his hands. “Tell me if you want me to stop,” he whispers, stroking a thumb over Jeff’s jaw and leaning in to carefully press their lips together.

Jeff stiffens for just a second before he relaxes into it, sighing and running his hands up and down Abed’s sides. He pulls back just long enough to say, “I don’t think that’s going to happen,” before tugging Abed back in for an even deeper kiss.

Britta is the only one in the study room on Monday when Jeff gets there. “Did I miss an email or something?” he asks wryly, dropping into his seat.

“Shirley’s boys have the day off, so she can’t come until the sitter shows up. Troy has a dentist appointment, Annie has a migraine, Pierce…” She gestures vaguely, and then smirks. “And _Abed…_ has a coffee date.”

Jeff drops into his chair. “You mean that as a figure of speech, right?”

“Nope,” Britta grins, popping the consonant for emphasis. “He’s got a _date_ date. With a guy from his film class. He texted me to tell me he’ll be late, if he makes it here at all.”

“Huh.” Jeff nods, rapping his fist on the table. “Okay. Yup. Cool. So, we’re on chapter four, right?”

“Oh, my God!”

Jeff jumps as Britta slaps her hand on the table. “You dummy!” she continues. “You slept with him, didn’t you?”

She’s got this uncanny ability to see through Jeff sometimes, so he doesn’t even bother trying to lie. “You could say that. _Ow,_ Britta!”

He rubs his arm where she’d punched him as she winds up to slug him again. “You idiot! I was _joking_ when I told you not to catch feelings for him. I didn’t think you were dumb enough to actually do it!”

“Who said I did?”

Britta rolls her eyes. “Please, when I said he was on a date you looked like you were gonna puke. Three days ago I didn’t even know you were into guys, and now you’re pining over _Abed?_ It’s _Abed,_ dude!”

Jeff stares at the table, shaking his head at his own stupidity. “Yeah,” he says dryly. “Exactly. It’s Abed.”

Britta softens then, shooting him a look of sympathy and squeezing his arm.

It turns out to be surprisingly difficult to avoid someone on a campus the size of Greendale, particularly when you’re pretending to date that person. Abed seeks him out after class, waits for him outside the lunch room, and calls his name across the quad, and Jeff does his best to keep his head down and dart off in the opposite direction every time.

Britta wants to knock him senseless every time she sees him, he’s pretty sure.

“Just _tell him_ how you feel!” she hisses when she sees Jeff ducking behind a tree to avoid Abed. “He’s not a relationship dude, but he’s not an asshole, either. And he adores you! Sure, maybe it’s just in a friendly way, but he’s not going to be a jerk if you just tell him how you feel.”

“Britta,” Jeff says through gritted teeth, “he made it clear that I was getting the Abed Nadir one-night-stand treatment. And he made that _abundantly_ clear when he went on a date three days later. If I let things get messy, that’s on me.” He sighs. “Unfortunately it means my grade in Whitman’s class is fucked. You know, at this point I’m starting to think a real class would have been less of a headache.”

Jeff is running out of excuses to miss the study group. And he knows Britta is probably right – he should just _talk_ to Abed – but the shame of walking into what he knew was a one-and-done arrangement, and having the audacity to ask for _more,_ has his face burning whenever he thinks about it. He can’t sleep at night, wrapped up in the humiliation of the situation he’s dragged himself into.

And all the while, he’s dodging Abed, who keeps waving at him across campus, shooting first friendly smiles and then confused frowns in his direction. It makes Jeff feel like shit, because he and Abed had been clear on the parameters of their arrangements – both when they started fake-dating and on the night they hooked up. So the way he’s acting now is probably throwing Abed for a loop in the worst way, and Jeff…Jeff can’t reconcile his shame with the guilt of what he’s doing to his friend.

He wonders if this would have been easier with a woman. If he had made this fake-dating arrangement with Britta and they’d hooked up, would it have been easier to be direct and tell her he wanted more?

But then he thinks of his lifelong patterns, the way he tramples down what he really wants because the risk of being denied carries with it the threat of inescapable, all-consuming pain. And it confirms what he’s always known – that _he_ is the problem, that he will always be the problem, because he will never actually let himself go after the things he wants.

Eventually, Jeff goes to Professor Whitman.

“Listen,” he says, rubbing a hand over his face. “You’re going to have to go ahead and give me that F after all. I can’t do it anymore.”

When the professor puts down his crossword puzzle and frowns quizzically, Jeff sighs. “Abed? My boyfriend? Yeah, that was a sham relationship because I am willing to do _anything_ if it means not doing work. We fake-dated all semester because I wanted the A, and Abed is a good enough person to go along with it.”

Professor Whitman shoots Jeff a disappointed look. “Mr. Winger, why are you telling me this?”

“Because.” Jeff falls into the seat across from Whitman. “I can’t do it anymore. Things got…complicated. Now I can’t even be around him, let alone hold his hand and pretend he actually likes me that way.” He scoffs at himself. “You’d figure it out sooner or later. Just seemed easier to come clean.”

Whitman leans over his desk and rests his chin on his folded hands. “You know what I see when I look at you, Jeffrey?”

“An asshole who threw out all his cargo pants?”

“A man who’s afraid to let himself dream. I’ve seen you with this young man every week after my class, and I’d have to be a fool not to notice the way you look at each other. And yet you would throw away your grade in this class just to avoid the vulnerability that comes with admitting you might have feelings for your friend.” Whitman smiles knowingly. “Mr. Winger, if you still want to get an A, you know exactly what you have to do.”

Jeff squints, his jaw dropping slightly before he shakes his head. “All due respect, Professor Whitman, I think I’ll just take the F at this point.”

“Jeffrey.” Whitman wags a finger at him. “Don’t make me say everyone’s favorite Latin tattoo phrase again.”

“Yeah, yeah, carpe diem, sir, I get it.” Rolling his eyes, Jeff shoves out of his seat and out into the hall.

Surprisingly enough, it’s Troy who gets through to him in the end, cornering him outside the cafeteria before lunch.

“Jeff, we need to talk,” he says, quickly adding, “Abed’s not here,” when it seems like Jeff is getting ready to bolt.

It only relaxes him marginally. “What do you want, Troy?”

“I want you to stop being weird around Abed. He’s a mess and you won’t even tell him what he did wrong. He feels terrible because he thinks he took advantage of you.”

“Whoa, _what?”_ Jeff’s eyes widen. “Troy, no way. When we – wait, he told you we…?”

Troy just shrugs, and Jeff sighs.

“Of course he did. Well, the point is, _no,_ Troy, I wanted that as much as he did.” Jeff scoffs. “Obviously much more than he did, actually.”

“What do you mean?” Troy asks with a frown.

“Oh, you know Abed. No-strings-attached, one-night-stand Abed. I was the one dumb enough to get attached to the guy and then hook up with him anyway.”

Troy looks bewildered now. “Jeff, he said you’re the one who wanted to keep it no-strings-attached. That when he asked if you wanted to keep it casual, you said yes.”

“Well, yeah, but that’s just because…” Jeff trails off and replays the night in his head. “Oh, my God. I thought my options were one-night-stand or nothing at all. Did I have more options I didn’t know about?”

“Uh, yes?” Troy says in his best “duh-doy” voice. “Dude, you know Abed is crazy about you, right?”

Jeff’s heart drops into his stomach. He shakes his head stupidly, all words lost to him as he tries to take in the meaning of Troy’s.

“Why else do you think he agreed to fake-date you, Jeff? He told me he’s had a crush on you since registration day. And when you said you were cool with just being a one-night-stand, he was like, super bummed about it and asked out that guy from his film class as a distraction.” Troy smiles in a way that says Jeff might be a bit of an idiot, but he’s fond of him anyway. “Man, Abed hates a miscommunication trope, but he’s going to be so stoked about how this one ends up.”

“What do you mean?”

Troy rolls his eyes. “And Pierce said _I_ was gonna be the dumb one in the group.” He puts a hand on Jeff’s shoulder and says, “You’re gonna go apologize to my best friend and win him back.”

Abed is in the study room with the cast of _The Community College Chronicles_ , doling out notes on the last scene, when one of his actors taps him on the arm and points over his shoulder. Abed turns around, and his eyes widen when he sees Jeff, out of breath and windswept, striding into the study room.

“Jeff?” Abed’s voice is flat, but his eyebrows dip in confusion. “Why are you panting?”

“Because I’ve been running,” Jeff says, still walking toward Abed.

“From Alaska?” Abed quips, before adding, “I thought we established you were the Sandra Bullock in this—”

“Abed. Stop. Talking.”

Abed shuts his mouth, but Jeff is pretty sure his lips are quirking up in the corners.

“Can I say something?” Jeff asks, still breathing heavily. “This’ll just take a sec.”

Just like he knew he would, Abed nods, and Jeff begins.

“Earlier in the semester, I thought you were weird. All I knew was you were the guy who talked too much, and stole my shirt, and filmed me when I didn’t want you to.”

Abed’s eyes are brighter than Jeff has ever seen, but he shrugs noncommittally and lets Jeff continue.

“Then we had our little adventure in fake-dating, and things started to change. Things changed when we kissed. And I let myself feel things I’d been hiding for a long time. But I didn’t realize any of this until I was standing alone…in a study room…Abed-less.”

He takes one last shaky breath before plunging in: “Now you can imagine my disappointment when it dawned on me that the guy I have feelings for is going on coffee dates with some hipster from his film class.”

The way Abed’s lips part as his eyebrows lift, just enough to indicate the utter shock Jeff’s words cause in him, speaks volumes. “You’re deviating from the script,” he breathes.

“Abed, _shut up.”_

“You have feelings for me?”

His heart is pounding, but Jeff finds it in him to offer Abed half a smile and a nod. “Yeah, Abed. Against all better judgement, I do.” He takes a final step closer until he can reach out and grab Abed’s hands, which is exactly what he does. “So why don’t we end the whole fake-dating thing? Because I’d really like to date you…for real.”

Abed’s fingers tighten around Jeff’s as he glances down before finally meeting Jeff’s gaze. “Is this why Troy asked to borrow my copy of _The Proposal_ this morning?”

“Of course it is,” Jeff says with a smirk.

“Cool,” Abed says, and to Jeff’s surprise and delight he actually laughs then, really laughs, as he pulls Jeff’s face toward his. “Cool, cool, cool cool cool cool.”

Normally Jeff would rather be caught without his hair gel than be caught kissing anyone, let alone another guy, in a crowded library study room, but when Abed’s lips are on his, he’s got no room for any thoughts but the gentle pressure of Abed’s mouth and the soft sighs escaping it. He pulls back to loop his arms around Abed’s waist and grins.

“You know a side effect of this is that I get an A in Whitman’s class now, right?”

Abed grins and gestures behind Jeff. “That’s good, because otherwise it’d be really embarrassing for everyone to be watching this.”

When Jeff turns around, he’s almost not even surprised when he glances at the doorway and sees Shirley and Pierce, looking scandalized; Annie, jumping up and down and squealing; Troy, with a face like sunshine as he mouths _Go Abed!_ and holds up two thumbs up; and Britta, rolling her eyes fondly as she slow claps and breaks into a grin.

Beside all of them, with tears silently streaming down his face, Professor Whitman holds a hand to his heart and bows in Jeff’s direction, which Jeff takes as a sign he’s going to ace his class.

“For the record,” Jeff says softly, turning back to Abed. “We missed the line where Sandra Bullock says—”

“I’m scared,” Abed finishes for Jeff. “Yeah. I don’t usually do relationships with people.”

“And doing a relationship with a guy is…entirely foreign to me,” Jeff admits quietly.

But in that straightforward way of his that is both discomfiting and comforting at once, Abed shrugs. “So let’s just go with what we know,” he says easily. “Why don’t I cut rehearsal short today and we can head back to my room?”

Jeff tugs Abed closer and smiles as he feels fingers gently stroking the back of his neck. “We never did finish that movie.”

Abed huffs out a laugh as Jeff ducks his head down. “You do know Troy wasn’t kidding when he said I hate Liam Neeson movies, right?”

“I’m willing to bet you like me more than you hate him.”

Jeff’s nose bumps against Abed’s temple, and Abed laughs again. “Yeah,” he says quietly, bring his mouth close to Jeff’s once more. “Against all better judgement, I do.”

**Author's Note:**

> (Abed's Liam Neeson hatred is probably not entirely canon-compliant but he hates The Grey and Jeff likes Liam Neeson let's just roll with it.)
> 
> Thank you for reading! I'm slutabed on tumblr oscillating between wholehearted Trobed affection and covert Jabed operations.


End file.
